Population censuses of the Russian
Empire, USSR, 15 new independent states

The First General Census of the Russian
Empire of 1897.
Breakdown of population by mother tongue and districts* in
50 Governorates of the European Russia

Select a region from the list below**

Language or group of languages

Language or group of languages

Males

Females

Both sexes ***

TOTAL

14585

10196

24 781

Russian

Great Russian

12119

9471

21 590

Ukrainian

203

30

233

Belarusian

530

11

541

Total

12 852

9 512

22 364

Polish

731

117

848

Other Slavic languages

Czech

Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian

Bulgarian

Lithuanian-Latvian dialects

Lithuanian

Samogitian

Latvian

6

5

11

Romance languages

Moldavian and Romanian

French

Italian

Spanish and Portuguese

German

62

40

102

Other Germanic languages

Swedish

Norwegian and Danish

Dutch

English

Other Indo-European dialects

Greek

Albanian

Armenian

Persian

Tajik

Talysh

Tat

Kurdish

Ossetic

Hindu

Gipsy

2

0

2

Pashto

Jewish

792

513

1 305

Kartvelian dialects

Georgian

Imereti

Mingrelian

Svan

Dialects of Caucasian hill-peoples

Kabardian

Circassian

Abkhaz

Chechen

Ingush

Kistin

Avar-Andi

Dargin

Kyurin

Udi

Kasi-Kumuk and other Lezgian dialects

Lezgian with no breakdown

Finnish dialects

Finnish

Votyak

Karelian

Izhorian

Chud

Estonian

Lappish

Zyrian

Permyak

Mordovian

Cheremis

Vogul

Ostyak

Hungarian

Turkish-Tatar dialects

Tatar

95

0

95

Bashkir

Misher

Teptyar

Chuvash

Karachay

Kumyk

Nogai

Turkish

Karapapak

Turkmen

Kyrgyz-Kaissak

Kara-Kirghiz

Kipchak

Kara-Kalpak

Sart

Uzbek

Taranchi

Kashgar

Turkic dialects with no breakdown

Yakut

Mongolian-Buryat dialects

Kalmyck

Buryat

Mongolian

Dialects of the other Nothern nations

Samoyed

Tungus

Manchu

Chukchi

Koryak

Kamchadal

Yukaghir

Chuvanian

Eskimo

Gilyak

Ainu

Aleut

Yenisei Ostyak

Languages of civilized peoples of the Far East

Chinese

Korean

Japanese

Other languages and dialects

Arabic

Aisor (Syro-Chaldean)

Other languages

Persons not specified mother tongue

Remainder (****)

45

9

54

* The territorial units used in
the Russian Empire in 1897 are translated here as follows:
уезд (uyezd) - distriict, губерния (guberniya) - governorate,
градоначальство (gradonachalstvo) - city municipality, военное
губернаторство (voyennoye gubernatorstvo) - military governorate.
The names of cities are translated according the usual dictionaries,
if not found - taken from Wikipedia, if not found in both
sources - transliterated.
** Here the language composition of population is given
for the districts of the Russian Empire. In the census results
the whole set of languages was published, however this DW
page displays only the languages spoken by at least 100
persons of one sex (mainly males) in each governorate. Russian,
Urkanian, and Belorussian are given in all regions.
*** Calculations by Demoscope Weekly
**** The last line "Remainder" is formed from
the languages spoken by the population sized less than 200
at a territory. The census results published have no such
line since all the languages were given including the languages
spoken by only 1 person.
***** This and similar lines refer to the population of
a territory without population of the district's center
if it is not an urban settlement.